Bombers lose 29-14 to Riders

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/09/2009 (5926 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — They scrap, they fight and they talk a damn good game.

But as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers reached the midway point of the 2009 Canadian Football League season with a 29-14 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in front of a sold-out Taylor Field crowd in the annual Labour Day Classic, we can say this about Mike Kelly’s crew:

They are now a 3-6 football team with some particularly glaring weaknesses — consistent play from the quarterback position and a kick-return threat being the most obvious — that don’t seem to have any solutions on the horizon any time soon.

“It’s disappointing, man,” began Doug Brown in a morose Bomber locker room. “It’s too many Labour Days out here with the same s—-y bus trip home and that feeling of unsatisfied performances. It’s just very disappointing.”

The trouble for the Bombers actually began not long after the national anthem was belted out and before the opening kickoff when there was some confusion on the coin toss. The Bombers lost the toss and the Riders deferred to the second half so they could have a gusting wind at their backs in the fourth quarter.

But somehow, some way Winnipeg not only had to kick off to open the game, but had the wind, too.

Head coach Mike Kelly and quarterback Michael Bishop raced across the field to speak to referee Glen Johnson about the confusion, but the decision wasn’t reversed.

“I’m not going to talk about the officials in the league,” said Kelly afterward. “We’ll just leave it at ‘semantics’ and leave it at that.”

Asked if there was a mix-up, Kelly said: “Se-man-tics. Yes. Next question.”

The Riders delivered a couple of quick blows early, piecing together two nine-play, 70-yards-plus TD drives to take a 14-4 lead into the second quarter. But, despite being predominantly out-played in the first half, the Bombers had an opportunity to inch closer in the second quarter’s dying minutes following a Lenny Walls’ interception and an Adarius Bowman reception that put the ball at the Rider one-yard line with one second remaining.

Opting to go for the major rather than kick the field goal, Bomber tailback Fred Reid was stuffed for a loss.

“We just can’t let that happen,” said Reid. “Any time you’re on the one-yard line you’ve got to get it in there some kind of way.”

“You’re the leading rushing team in the league, you’ve got the leading running back in the league… you run your best back through your best hole and the guard gets beat and you don’t get in,” added Kelly. “It came down to that. I truly believed that from a yard and a half away we could bang it in there and we didn’t do it.”

But that was just one of many mistakes for the Bombers on the afternoon. Winnipeg turned the ball over six times — with Bishop intercepted on three occasions — and also fumbled twice, once on a botched punt return by Keyuo Craver and the other on a called run to Romby Bryant in which the receiver clearly wasn’t anticipating the ball.

They also missed tackles, were forced to take a time out because they couldn’t get a play called properly — this after a change of possession — and generally made enough mistakes to fill a season-long blooper film.

On top of all that, the Riders held the ball for almost 14 minutes — 60 seconds shy of an entire quarter — than the Bombers.

“They made some plays, hats off to them,” said Bishop. “That goal-line stand… I think if we get into the end zone we get the momentum going into the half time. But they some plays. If I could do it again I probably would have pulled it (kept it on the fake) and then tried to out-run them to the edge.”

Bishop finished the day 2o of 33 for 329 yards — his best passing total as a Bomber — but two of the three picks were critical.

The Bombers also wasted two 100-yard receiving efforts from Adarius Bowman (five catches for 121 yards) and Terrence Edwards (8-120), but the Riders completely shut down the vaunted run game as Fred Reid rushed for just 41 yards on 12 carries.

In the end, the game was the perfect snapshot for this Bomber team. Too many mistakes, not enough scoring, inconsistent play across the board.

“I don’t know very many football teams who can overcome six turnovers,” said Kelly. “We just have to be smarter about what we do with the football. I’ve never question our guys’ effort. It was outstanding. But our execution just wasn’t where it needed to be.

“We’ve done that in every game and at some point we have to overcome some of these things and start putting it all together. We play with great effort. We play with great desire… I don’t question our guys in that regard. But we have to execute better. We had things that were there but just didn’t pull them off.

"How many balls did we have knocked down today because we weren’t able to fire out and get their defensive ends’ hands down? I’m guessing we had four balls batted down where we had guys open and didn’t get the ball to them. We just have to do a better job of executing all the way around.

“I don’t think they’re a better football team than us. I don’t,” added Kelly. “But they executed better than we did. I don’t think they played any harder than we played, but they executed better than we did and that’s what it came down to.

"The fortunate thing is we get them again. We get to do this all over again in seven days so let’s go back and polish up and keep our effort high and keep our spirits high and see if we can take care of the football better next Sunday.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca